Chapter 6
Wale was taking a nap the following day when his phone started to ring. He pulled it out from under his pillow, and with half opened eyes, he saw it was Chinaza calling.
“Hello.” He said after picking the call. “How are you doing?” He added as he cleared his throat and rolled over in bed.
“Hey, sorry, did I wake you?”
“Umm…Yeah, but it’s no big deal. What’s up?” He was seated up at the edge of the bed now in boxer shorts; one hand holding up the phone to his ear, the other hand rubbing his chest.
“I… I wanted to ask if you could come meet me at the mall, but don’t worry. I’ll…”
“I’ll come.” He said, cutting her off. He cleared his throat a few more times before saying, “Just give me like 30 minutes, I’ll be there.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’ll be at the Game Room.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
“Okay.” She said and the line got disconnected. Wale sat in still in bed for a couple of seconds after ending the call, looking into space. He had really been concerned about her earlier on before falling asleep. She was a naïve girl, and he didn’t like the idea of her going over to her new friend’s house alone. But he didn’t want to seem jealous, so he didn’t discourage her. Now she was asking him to meet her at the mall, even though she had said nothing of such plans when he called her in the morning to wish her happy birthday.
He shook his head vigorously to snap out of the sleepy state he was in, got off the bed and headed to the bathroom.
……….
Wale got to the mall 50 minutes after ending the call, and he found her sitting on a backless wooden bench outside the game room. She had on brown sandals and a sky blue gown that stopped at her knees; a small brown cross-body flap bag across her shoulder, red lipstick on her lips and her signature big cornrow braids resting on her chest. From what he could see of her side view, she looked so beautiful, and he was surprised no boy was trying to talk to her. Her face lit up when she turned to the side and saw him approaching. She slid to the left on the bench to make room for him.
“Thanks for coming.” She said as he sat on the bench next to her and gave her a quick hug. “Nice shirt.” She said, complimenting the black, double b*****s pocket denim shirt he had on.
“Thanks.” He said and looked around the white painted mall corridors. It was a public holiday, and the whole place was filled with kids running around. “So…how did you end up here?” He asked as his eyes focused on the game room in front of them. The inside had bright lights everywhere; arcade games were lined up left and right, and straight ahead was a bench with people playing Play Station on two big screen TVs.
“Well…” She was saying and turned to look at him for a few seconds without saying anything. A smiled appeared on her face before saying, “Come. I need to play a particular game with you.” She got up and pulled him along. The glass doors opened up as they approached the entrance. They were drowned by the various sounds coming from the over a dozen video games being played at the same time. The inside of the place was quite cold. It was like they had just stepped into another world.
She took him to the last arcade game on the left roll; A black arcade machine with Tomb Raider written on it. “It’s better played with two or more players.” She said in a loud voice as she pulled out coins out of her small brown bag. “You’d love it. Just follow my lead.” She added as she put the coins in the arcade machine slot. He smiled at her; his mind lost in thought, wondering what she was trying to suppress.
Like her, Wale was a gamer, and it didn’t take him long to figure out the gun game. With time, he found himself having more fun than he had anticipated. And it was really cool seeing her genuinely happy.
After playing the same game for about an hour, they called it quits and left the game room. She didn’t feel like going home just yet, so they headed over to an ice cream spot. The place was a small establishment, and they had tall bar stools right outside the shop, on the corridor of the mall. Wale and Chinaza were seated on the stools, next to each other, scooping vanilla ice cream out of a white cup as they chitchatted.
“My date didn’t go so well.” She said after a short period of silence.
He looked at her for a few seconds before asking, “Did he… did he try to do anything against your will?”
“Umm…” She stopped to take a scoop from her ice cream cup before going on with, “Let’s just say I won’t be seeing him again.” Wale wanted to ask her some more questions, but he decided to save it for later. “I had fun at the game room.” She said and turned to look at him with a smile on her face. “We should do this more often.”
“Yeah, we should. I really had fun too.”
She looked into space for a while before saying, “I don’t know what I was expecting.” She had her head low now. “I saw the red flags through the chats we had but ignored them.”
“What exactly happened?”
She was silent for a while, and then without looking at him, she said, “He didn’t even try to kiss me, he just wanted to…” She looked to the side now.
“Give me his number, I’ll…”
“No.” She said and turned to face Wale. She gently held his hand on the table. “I knew what I was getting into.”
“Did he…”
“No. I pushed him off and left his house.” It was his turn to hold her hand now. They sat there in silence for a couple of seconds before she said in a low voice, “After I left his place, all I wanted to do was run home and cry in my bed.” Her head was down, and she turned the melted ice cream slowly with the little white spoon in her hand. “But I felt my mom would be able to tell something was wrong. So I came here.”
There was another prolonged silence before she said, “He made me feel all boys want the same thing, and I was pissed at every boy passing by me at the mall.” She stopped turning the ice cream now and looked at him. “But then I thought, that’s not true; Wale isn’t like that. And that realization made me want to be with you.” He smiled at her, and she went back to her ice cream. She looked his way after taking a scoop of ice cream in her mouth and saw he had a faraway look on his face. “I know you’re thinking of the other day. But you didn’t try to take advantage of me.” She went back to her ice cream before saying, “I wanted you to kiss me.”
After a long, awkward silence, Wale cleared his throat before saying, “I have a confession to make.” She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “I lied. I’ve never kissed a girl before.”
She smiled before saying, “I kind of knew you were lying.”
……….
They were seated at the bus stop now, along the expressway that led to their neighborhood. Apart from the white light that illuminated the bus stop, everywhere else around the place was dark. “Wale, I think we missed the last bus.” She said, clutching her bag, sitting next to him.
“Hmm…”
“Maybe we’ll have to walk home. How many kilometers do you think the journey is?”
“I don’t know; Maybe about 2 kilometers.”
“Hmm…I’m cold.” She said and moved closer to him on the bench. “How long do you think it would take to walk home?”
“Maybe …Maybe like 30 minutes.” He said as he put his arm around her.
“Not bad. We used to walk to school together back in the day, and that was like 15 to 20 minutes, right?”
“Umm…Yeah, I guess.” He said and smiled before adding, “I just remembered something.”
“What?” She asked and looked at him.
“My aunt told me we reminded her of my parents.”
“What?”
“Yeah, she saw us walking together the other day.” She looked at him strange, and he added, “On the day of the competition.”
“Oh, okay. But…wait…this is really weird. Why do we remind her of your parents?”
“I don’t know. I guess because they used to walk to school together too.”
“Oh.”
“My aunt was also actually my mom’s friend. In fact, she was the one that introduced them.”
“Wow! That’s interesting.”
“Yeah.” He was looking straight ahead now, with a smile on his face.
She nudged him before saying, “You didn’t get me anything for my birthday.”
“I did. I forgot it at home.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah… so…yeah, so what was your birthday wish? You never got to tell me what it was.”
There was silence for a while before she said, “I wished to find a guy that genuinely loved me.” She was looking at him now. “I found him already but I didn’t understand at first.” He looked in her eyes; no more words were needed to be said, he knew exactly what she meant. He gazed deep in her soul for a couple of seconds before leaning in to kiss her.
The End
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